For over 30 years now, possibly more, The American Spectator has been holding monthly meetings, usually in local eateries. We continue to do this despite the atrocious manners of some of our guests, most notably guests who are members of Congress, usually from the Northeast. We invite them even when they arrive late and with precautionary soup stains on their shirts, along with other telltale signs warning that their manners are not up to snuff. We invite them because they have proven track records that they are lively conversationalists, though most are prone to lying. The most recent congressman to bend the truth was the Hon. Matt Gaetz from the great state of Florida — though he would have bent many more truths had I not taken immediate action. More on that matter later.
It all began hundreds of miles from Washington, D.C., and many years ago. In fact, we auspicated the magazine where it all began, in Bloomington, Indiana, over 50 years ago. In those days, our guests were not as tony as they are nowadays, and, as I recall, many sat on the floor; and some drank their beer out of glass jars. Though back in those days, most of us had an excuse for our slovenliness. We were mere students at Indiana University. Still, some of our guests came from out of town, for instance, Pat Moynihan, at the time Sen. Pat Moynihan, and Bill Buckley, whose name you will doubtless recognize. Both of them spoke in a curiously accented English and neither of them drank their beer from a jar. Pat, in fact, drank vodka and Bill drank what he called claret. Those days were what is today called “the good old days.” They will never come again, alas.
Now it transpires that Congressman Gaetz is, of a sudden, known as ex-Congressman Gaetz, and I like to think that it is in part because of a dustup that he invited upon himself at a meeting of our monthly club (which has come to be known as the Saturday Evening Club, though it never meets on Saturday evening). At any rate, somehow Gaetz wangled an invitation to be guest speaker at one of our dinners. I was waiting for him as he entered the room.
In due course, rumor would have it that his nomination for attorney general was in trouble. There was talk of Gaetz being a womanizer, a drinker, a drug user, and other unseemly practices. Did he brush his teeth after dinner? Who knew?
What could have President Donald Trump been thinking when he considered such a rogue for the highest legal position in the government? Well, it turns out that once again the president-elect had pulled a rabbit out of his hat. In merely contemplating Gaetz’s appointment by allowing the rumor to spread that Gaetz had the job locked up, the Congress was roused to action, and at no cost to Mr. Trump. Gaetz bailed and the president got a competent replacement, Pam Bondi.
But what about me standing in wait outside our dinner that night at the Saturday Evening Club? As he approached, I prepared my riposte. “Congressman, after the way you treated my staff, you are no longer invited to the Saturday Evening Club,” I said. His eyes widened. I detected his temples were beginning to throb. He called his wife away from the bar. He had been stupendously rude to my staff. Mr. Gaetz was finished in Washington.
